Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Whirlygig Tutorial... Part 1

By popular demand, here is the first part of the Whirlygig tutorial. Today I will show you how to construct the center whirly part. Sources for the tools I used will be at the end of the post.

First choose your two fabrics. As you may recall, I am using black and white and one bright color. Then lay your template on the fabric and cut 12 "whirly" pieces, 6 of each color.

I stack my fabric and cut through at least two layers at one time. But if you do this make sure that your fabrics are ALL right side up. I use a rotary cutter right up against the template, if you don't feel comfortable with this method, you can trace and cut with a scissors.

Once you have all your pieces cut, you will begin to join them together. Take one of each color and begin.

Line up the inner corner of the whirlygig black and white piece, right sides together, as pictured above.

Then gently curve it to meet with the bottom piece so it looks as pictured above. I pin at either end then fill in the middle portion evenly with pins.

Then take it to your sewing machine and gently feed it through using a quarter inch seam allowance, removing pins as you go along.

Once it is sewn you will have a piece as pictured above.

Take it to your ironing surface and gently press the top piece back so that it nicely pressed flat.

Continue joining all the whirly wedges together until you have all 12 together.

Once you have all 12 together, then you will have to complete the circle. This is done the same way that you have sewn the rest together.

Join them right sides together, pinning at both ends and then through the middle of each piece. Sew your quarter inch seam to complete the circle. Take it to your ironing surface and press open.

Now you have a completed whirlygig circle!! Well, minus the middle.

Now because I altered the original pattern, which was applique, my whirlygig circle comes out larger than it should be to fit the spikey curves on properly. If you use, John Flynn's Template set, you will not have to do this and you will also not have to do the second part of this tutorial. So we have to trim it down. I traced the correct circle onto template plastic and then laid it on the whirlygig circle as shown above.

Trim away the excess with either a rotary cutter (if you are confident) or trace and trim with a scissors. Now you have the perfect size to complete the block.

Next we need to make the center circle. Choose your fabric and lay your template on and cut with the rotary cutter or trace and cut with a scissors.

This circle includes the seam allowance for turning under.

Take a Perfect Circle, the correct size, and trace around with a chalk pencil to mark your quarter inch seam.

You can see the chalk mark in the photo above.

Now take a needle and thread, and run a basting stitch in the seam allowance.

With the perfect circle inside, pull up the basting stitches, spray with a little starch and press. Pull the perfect circle out and you are ready to applique the circle into the center of your whirlygig. You can either machine applique or needle turn. Whatever your preference.

Oh my goodness, Jackie. I have been following your progress with these blocks and already had the Piece 'O Cake book so had already told myself that a whirlygig quilt had to go on the quilt bucket list for next year. Then earlier today I ordered the Flynn template set and now I read your post and your doing a tutorial. I tell you it's kismet!